Origins: Ballad Tunes - Tam Lin Thomas the Rhymer

Subject: RE: Origins: Ballad Tunes - Tam Lin Thomas the Rhymer
From: Robert B. Waltz
Date: 08 Aug 25 - 09:45 PM

Nick Dow makes a good point about tunes and their travels.

Another good thing to consider would be to go to the Roud Index and see how many of these various texts are found in broadsides. Broadsides were of course sold without tunes, and the sellers would often use a tune they knew. And so a tune that originated with one text would come to be associated with some other text. This happened a lot. Using Bronson's hints and that fact, you might even be able to figure out which songs are more likely to be "sources" and which "recipients."

Subject: RE: Origins: Ballad Tunes - Tam Lin Thomas the Rhymer
From: Nick Dow
Date: 08 Aug 25 - 03:51 PM

It's a bit too much to take in in one reading, Kevin, but my immediate reaction is for you to consult Bronson. Secondly, the tunes used for ballad texts are often much younger than the ballads themselves. It's always worth remembering that there is no definite tune family anywhere; all that can be said is that there are related tunes and cadences that usually end up with a chicken-and-egg debate and, in my experience, have a secular or art music origin. Then again, the area of the super-variant cannot be discounted. A good example is the 'Dark-eyed sailor', the tune crops up again and again with in the tradition, much the same as the 'Vilikins' melody. Certain cadences from either tune introduce a variant that comes close to repcomposition, my point being that maybe this is what you are experiencing with the airs in your above post. Captain Wedderburn's Courtship is another good example of tune sharing, but then again, authorship has been claimed by Besom Jimmy, a Scots Traveller. I collected the tune from one of the Blackpool Gypsy Folk attached to the John Reilly song.
To sum up, it is not unusual to find a tune sharing family in all areas of the British Tradition. As I suggested, Bronson may give you some idea of the tune's structure and origin, and the earliest version which my be worth pursuing.

Subject: RE: Origins: Ballad Tunes - Tam Lin Thomas the Rhymer
From: Lighter
Date: 07 Aug 25 - 02:12 PM

Sorry I can't shed any light, but fantastic research! Thanks for posting, Kevin!

Subject: Origins: Ballad Tune - Tam Lin / Thomas the Rhymer
From: GUEST,Kevin W. aka Reynard the Fox on Youtube
Date: 07 Aug 25 - 10:48 AM

I'd like to talk about a widespread and likely old ballad tune family. In my years of listening to field recordings I've heard this tune more times than I can count.

From the top of my head:

Lady Isabel and the Elf-Knight (Child 4)
Charles Scott Brink (Pennsylvania, USA), James Christie (Kincardineshire, Scotland)

The Douglas Tragedy (Child 7)
Betsy Whyte (Angus, Scotland), Mary Williamson (Argyll, Scotland), Robert Shifflet (Virginia, USA)

Thomas the Rhymer (Child 37)
Duncan Williamson (Argyll, Scotland), Betsy Whyte (Angus, Scotland)

Tam Lin (Child 39)
Betsy Johnston (Glasgow, Scotland), Duncan Williamson (Argyll, Scotland)

Hind Etin (Child 41)
Bell Duncan (Aberdeenshire, Scotland), Bathia Fowlie (Aberdeenshire, Scotland)

The Twa Brothers (Child 49)
Belle Stewart (Blairgowrie, Scotland)

Lizie Wan (Child 51)
Georgia Ann Griffin (Florida, USA)

The King's Dochter Lady Jean (Child 52)
Sara Cleveland (New York, USA)

Child Waters (Child 63)
Alexander Robb (Aberdeenshire, Scotland)

Young Hunting (Child 68)
Martin McDonagh (Roscommon, Ireland), Frank Proffitt (North Carolina, USA)

Lord Lovel (Child 75)
Rita & Sarah Keane (Galway, Ireland)

Sweet William's Ghost (Child 77)
Paddy Tunney (Donegal, Ireland), Gordie Willis (Newfoundland, Canada)

Johnny o' Braidislee (Child 114)
John Strachan (Aberdeenshire, Scotland), Jeannie Robertson (Aberdeenshire, Scotland), Margaret Stewart (Kincardineshire, Scotland), Duncan Williamson (Argyll, Scotland), Elsie Morrison (Moray, Scotland)

Little Sir Hugh (Child 155)
John Ban Byrne (Donegal, Ireland)

The Broom of Cowdenknows (Child 217)
Margaret Stewart (Kincardineshire, Scotland)

The Gardener Child (Child 219)
Alexander Robb (Aberdeenshire, Scotland)

Lady Diamond (Child 269)
Mary Stewart Robertson (Aberdeenshire, Scotland)

Let No Man Steal Your Thyme (Roud 3)
Patrick Green (Longford, Ireland), Sara Cleveland (New York, USA)

The Leaves of Life (Roud 127)
May Bradley (Shropshire, England)

Edmund in the Lowlands Low (Roud 182)
Betty Smith & Obray Ramsay (North Carolina, USA)

They've all been sung to variations of this tune by traditional singers from Scotland, Ireland, England, the USA and Canada. I'm sure there are more examples. It appears to be one of the most widespread ballad tunes used for traditional ballads and songs all over the English speaking world.

Often the last line of each verse is repeated like here in Tam Lin (Child 39):

For tomorrow it is new Halloween
And the quality's going to ride
You'll pass them by at the old millbridge
As they go riding by, my dear
As they go riding by.

Or here in Young Hunting (Child 68):

Will you bow down, Lord Thomas, he said,
Will you bow down all night?
It's you'll have cheer and company
And candles burning bright, bright,
And candles burning bright.

In Sir Hugh (Child 155):

It being all in the summer time
When all the lakes were dry,
When all the scholars of Mount Gallingtown
Got out to play the ball, ball,
Got out to play the ball.

In Lady Isabel (Child 4):

He followed me up and he followed me down,
Until my bedchamber came;
I had not the wings for to fly away,
Nor the tongue to tell him nay, nay, nay,
Nor the tongue to tell him nay.

In a different variant of Lady Isabel (Child 4):

Step in, step in, my lady fair,
Nae harm shall thee befall;
For ofttimes here I've watered my steed
In the water o Weary Well, Well,
In the water o Weary Well.

In Lady Diamond (Child 269):

There was a king, and a gay merry king,
And a merry king was he;
He had an only dochter dear,
And Daisy was her name, name,
And Daisy was her name.

In Let No Man Steal Your Thyme (Roud 3):

Come all you lads and lasses gay
That flourish in your prime, prime,
Beware, beware, keep your garden clear
Let no man steal your thyme, thyme,
Let no man steal your thyme.

In Edmund in the Lowlands Low (Roud 182):

Young Emily was a pretty fair miss.
She loved a driver boy
Who drove a stage from the Golden Gate,
Way down in the lowland low, my love,
Way down in the lowland low.

In Sweet William's Ghost (Child 77):

Lady Margaret she lay on her fine feather bed,
The midnight hour drew nigh,
When the ghostly form came to her room,
And to her it did appear, appear,
And to her it did appear.

But there are also variants of the tune where the last line isn't repeated.

The opening of "Tam Lin" (Child 39) about encountering a man in the woods is also shared with "Hind Etin" (Child 41) and with "The King's Dochter Lady Jean" (Child 52). And at least some of the songs I listed above open with Lady Margaret sitting in her bower, sewing a silken seam.

It's worth pointing out that Scottish Travellers sang "Tam Lin" (Child 39) to the same tune as the "The Douglas Tragedy" (Child 7). It explains how a verse of The Douglas Tragedy slipped into Duncan Williamson's Tam Lin. Not to mention Traveller versions of both songs involve a Lady Margaret:

So Lady Margaret on the white milk steed
Lord William on his dappled grey
With a bugle and horn hanging down by the side
It's merrily they rode away, away
It's merrily they rode away

Duncan explained how he once had a disagreement with folklorist Hamish Henderson over which of the two ballads the verse properly belongs to. Duncan said in The Douglas Tragedy they both died, there is no one riding away at the end. So he kept the verse at the end of Tam Lin which has a happy ending.

Mary Williamson (born 1921), a Traveller at Lochgilphead, Glassary, Argyllshire, Scotland, sang The Douglas Tragedy for Linda Williamson in 1976 to the exact same tune Duncan Williamson used for Tam Lin. Mary Williamson's father was Duncan Townsley and her mother was Belle Williamson, Duncan Williamson's aunt. They were from Campbeltown.

Duncan Williamson (1928-2007) was a Traveller of Furnace, Argyllshire, Scotland, who later settled in Fife. Duncan first knew Tam Lin in fragmentary form from the singing of his grandmother Bett MacColl in Tarbert, Loch Fyne, Kintyre, and later completed it by adding verses he heard from other family members later in his life. Travellers called the song "Lady Margaret" and Tam Lin or Carterhaugh aren't named in the few preserved texts.

Folklorist Linda Williamson, who married and lived with Duncan for many years, noted in her thesis on Traveller singing:
In October 1982 Duncan invited his second cousin Robbie Townsley to stay with him for a few weeks, so the two of them could collaborate on some narrative fragments Duncan knew. The result was the completion of Duncan's "Lady Margaret". Until 1982 the song had never been more than a partially sung and spoken fairy story in Duncan's repertoire.

An early recording of Duncan's Tam Lin fragment before he reconstructed it was made by George McIntyre and Helen Fullarton in 1967. And a longer, but still incomplete version was recorded by Linda Williamson in 1976 where Duncan broke down during the song and said "I can't finish it". Previously, in 1956, Tam Lin was recorded from Betsy Johnston, a Traveller in Glasgow, by Hamish Henderson, in a version much like Duncan Williamson's.

"Thomas the Rhymer" (Child 37) is another fairy ballad. It was only recorded from Duncan Williamson. And it also uses a variation on our ballad tune family above. There is evidence pointing towards it being genuinely traditional. Duncan learned most of Thomas the Rhymer from "Uncle" Sandy Townsley, his mother's cousin, who travelled much of the time in Aberdeenshire. And parts of it from Uncle Duncan Townsley. Another Traveller, Betsy Whyte of Montrose, Angus, remarked that her mother sang it after she'd listened to Duncan singing the song. Betsy said Traveller women used to sing it when they were drunk, to the same tune as Duncan, but "mare drunken and rollin".

Betsy Whyte never learned Thomas the Rhymer from her mother but she produced the following stanza for Linda Williamson in 1976:

Oh, she rode and she rode and they better, better rode,
It was all by the light o' the moon
Till once they did come to this river of tears,
It was spent on the earth every day.

She sang it to the same tune as her family version of "The Douglas Tragedy" (Child 7) which has a similar verse.

Betsy Whyte was born Betsy Townsley on November 7th, 1919 at Ashgrove Road, Rattray. She was one of four children born to a traveller family whose parents were Alexander "Sandy" Townsley and Margaret Johnston. Are Alexander "Sandy" Townsley and Duncan's "Uncle" Sandy Townsley the same person? Sadly I can't answer that but what little evidence we have points towards Thomas the Rhymer being traditional in the Townsley Traveller family.

The song as we got it from Duncan Williamson (and Betsy's fragment) mentions a river of tears. This is notable because it does not appear in any of Prof. Child's texts. I take it as a sign that the song was traditional with Travellers for some time and wasn't recently learned from print.

The "Dives and Lazarus / Star of the County Down" and "Down Derry Down" tune families are also worth talking about and it would be interesting to list variants but that's for another time. Or the tune that's often used in Appalachia for "Barbara Allen" (Child 84), "The Hanging of Georgie" (Child 209), "Little Mattie Groves" (Child 81), "The Southern Soldier" (Roud 4770) and "The Trooper and the Maid" (Child 299) by mountain singers. Or the "Shady Grove" (Roud 4456) tune which also appears in "Fair Margaret and Sweet William" (Child 74) and Little Mattie Groves (Child 81).

If you're interested in hearing Tam Lin and Thomas the Rhymer sung, I recently uploaded videos of Duncan Williamson performing both songs for American folklorist John D. Niles and his research team in 1986.

Tam Lin (Child 39) (1986) - Duncan Williamson (Scottish Traveller Traditional Singer):
https://youtu.be/a-8BwAx8b9M

Thomas the Rhymer (Child 37) (1986) - Duncan Williamson (Scottish Traveller Traditional Singer):
https://youtu.be/niKG2Q4SsFE

The videos give us an impression of what Duncan Williamson was like as a person and they show us how he performed his songs and stories to an audience. The visual aspect of performance is completely missed when we listen to sound recordings.